[El_Phil]

The explanations are never simple, or the details of it aren't, and in general people do tend to go 'Arrrrrrrrrrrgh!' and run off screaming at the concepts. The maths are worse. You can simplify things, but then you risk lose the meaning. "Things should be as simplified as far as possible, but no further." Einstien I believe.

As for the gravity when a ship stops or is at constant speed your crew should be floating around. Now this isn't really very neat, honour guards drifting around the room, coffee drifting towards the screens etc, but it's the way it goes.

Just as a side point, I do remember something about G force tolerance being massively variable. A big naval aviation study ,if I recall, had variance from 2.5 to 7.5 for blackouts in pilots/personnel. Of course you'd hope it was the pilots at 7Gs and the cleaners at 2.5 but still.